Setting The Bar Low Archives - Page 100 of 103 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

February 28, 2010February 28, 2010Behind Closed Doors

High Speed Rail Boondoggle Splashed With Cold Water

According to a Sunday Los Angeles Times story, here, the high speed rail (HSR) project, every big-government lover’s answer to all our problems, is starting to receive more unwelcome scrutiny lately. Skyrocketing projected costs and ticket prices, federal subsidy guarantee requirements, incomprehensible ridership projections, and property takings that include, apparently, some part of Buena Park’s Metrolink Station or the adjacent residential development are causing folks to take a harder look at this fiasco in the making.

Things have gotten so bad that even lefty Long Beach State Senator Alan Lowenthal is upset.

HSR should be a source of great alarm to everyone in north Orange County, both in terms of its cost to the taxpayers, the damage that it will do to established communities, and also because so many clueless but ambitious politicians like Harry Sidhu and Lorri Galloway are using it as a mantra to solve unemployment woes in California, and in particular Orange County.

When and if this monstrosity is ever built, the jobs will go to giant out of town engineering firms. Most of the construction workers will be imported from the Inland Empire and Los Angeles County – just like they are on every public works project. The only local recipients of reliable employment benefit will be the lobbyists like Anaheim’s outgoing mayor, Curt Pringle and his ilk who are promoting this giant money sucking vortex in their own interest.

And just watch as the onerous environmental laws that the rest of us have to live by are waived for the politicos pet project.

February 27, 2010Boohooism

The Truth About Matthew Cunningham

by Christian44 Comments

A Friend pointed out something that bears mentioning for those of us that have some sense of ethics but may be naïve when it comes to blogs and how some operate.

Did you know that Matthew Cunningham has another website besides the oh-so Mauve County? It’s Pacific-Strategies where he brags about “employing innovative social media strategies to advance your message and create community” and “influencing opinion leaders through via both new and tradional media”. Nice typo’s Matt. Clearly he is the superior communicator! I’m not too sure what this clown is trying to say with this: “successfully guiding your projecting throuygh the government approval process” and “providing seasoned counsel to ensure your message is taken seriously by opinion leaders ad key decision-makers”. It is hard to take anyone seriously that brags about communication and swaying public opinion when the author can’t even complete a sentence. A wordsmith he is not but maybe a word-butcher. Just imagine a game of scrabble with him.

Ah, but now Matt’s “strategies” at Mauve County are clear! He gets to be a paid consultant (I find it hard to believe that anyone would actually give him a dime) via one company, Pacific-Strategies, while he attempts in vain to sway public opinion on his Mauve site by “employing” those innovative social media strategies. I speculate that those strategies include but are not limited to the hiring of extra bloggers to post pro threads for Cunningham’s paid cause and then the twerp has these same extras jump in and lob personal attacks to discredit any opposition or support for their paid cause. “We’re experienced with effective strategies for favorably influencing elected leaders, government officials, and community and opinion leaders—building coalitions and mobilizing opinion in support of your goals, and neutralizing critics.”(http://www.pacific-strategies.com/collaboration/) So his job is to NEUTRALIZE CRITICS! If you pay him some money or do him a favor, he will NEUTRALIZE critics. Is he talking about offing someone? Bumping someone off? Or just a shotgun approach for attacking anyone with a different opinion, especially one supported by facts?

After reading these carefully crafted words from Matthew Cunningham own website, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind just how Red County operates under his direction and the truth behind Matthew Cunningham slanderous lies. He is completely void of any moral or ethical foundation which a normal person might be grounded in. In his own words, Cunningham says “More and more people get more and more of their information from new media such as blogs, Twitter and FaceBook, and your organization needs to engage them in those arenas. Properly used, new media tools powerfully enhance your organization’s ability to not only communicate with your target audience, but build trust and community.” Building trust through outright lies and deception is usually called FRAUD. That is particularly bad when your own mission statement reads: “Red County strives to provide intelligent, well-informed insights into local political issues affecting the lives of readers in each market we serve. In striving to support the ideals of limited government and individual liberty, Red County will hold the mirror up to Republicans and Democrats alike.” Clearly, there is no mirror in the arsenal at Fraud County.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough! Anyone with their own website, including FFFF, can determine visitor’s internet provider address much the same way we use caller ID. If you are a genuine visitor and you leave genuine comments, no problem…unless of course you are on Cunningham’s web site. Bloggers on Blogspot.com don’t normally have that level of access, so no need to worry about posting on those sites. The real concern should come when a commentator dishes out insider information on a government agency and the head of that agency has the blogger in his back pocket. Then the blogger gets to out the commentator. It is not ethical to throw a genuine whistle-blower under the bus but we are not talking about an ethical person, now are we. It is reminiscent of the reports of Cunningham outing of sex abuse victims. I don’t know if Cunningham was actually paid to out anyone, but the content of his other website begs the question.

There are a lot of talented people reading this who are much smarter than me and I encourage you to do some digging yourself. After I did my own digging into this, I realized just how biased I have become against Red County and several of their resident (generally newer) bloggers. Therefore, it is imperative that you check for yourself. I’m no great sleuth like the other FFFF’ers but if we can shed a little light up this dark hole, all the better.

I would love to know the names of anyone who has ever contributed a penny to Pacific-Strategies and follow that paper trail.

February 27, 2010February 27, 2010Behind Closed Doors

The Tom Daly Experience. The Longer You Look, The Worse It Gets

by Grover Cleveland34 Comments

daly-and-lewis — Just keep saying "fiscal conservative."

UPDATE: FYI, our document request only extended back to 2005. Any retainer payments to GFR in 2004 are not included in the spreadsheet, below.

– GC

Yesterday we reported on the dubious contract between Tom Daly’s County Clerk office and a Republican PR man and campaign agent, Brett Barbre, that put a cool $48,000 in Barbre’s pocket, and produced no evident accomplishment. We also learned that Mr. B was not only a political supporter of Daly, but a big contributor, too – to the tune of one thousand bucks.

Today’s revelation is just as startling. Starting in the summer 2004 Daly made an agreement with an operation called Government Finance Research from Rocklin, CA, and it’s principle consultant, Peter A. Lauwerys, for a retainer deal that would cost the County $1695 per month, each and every month with special projects billed separately. Consider the implications: over twenty grand a year to some sort of research firm in order to do….well, nothing.

In the documents provided to us through our request for “all activity status reports” and “lists of work completed,” we have identified two principal GRS project proposals: one was to do a “push” survey to support Daly’s desire to expand his empire by opening satellite offices. The survey project as outlined in a September 2004 proposal would cost $16,200. Apparently that project was not finished per the original contract because in January 2005 Mr. Lauwerys proposed a nine-week extension that would cost the County another $14,000 – a whopping 86% increase. The survey was finally produced in April 2005 – a meager twenty-two page double-spaced report, including tables, plus photos and appendices.

One year and twelve more retainer payments later, in June, 2006 Lauwerys submitted a second proposal: $15,800 to “prepare and complete” the California County Recorder Association’s Statistical Report for 2006, a job that Daly apparently decided to take over from the County of Riverside. Why the County of Orange and not the Association paid for this “report” is unknown.

Finally in November, 2007 and another year and a half of retainer payments later, GFR did some sort of analysis of the benefits of “outsourcing” data entry clerks and found a savings. We do not know if Daly implemented the recommendation contained therein.

Since then two more years of monthly retainer payments have been made by the taxpayers of Orange County to the lucky boys at GFR.

The County’s invoice and billing records pertaining to GFR appear to be incomplete and somewhat confused. But one thing is perfectly clear: GFR has been receiving a monthly retainer of $1700 a month for over five years, and counting. The latest check was cut on January 15, 2010, so presumably the GFR spigot has not been turned off. Not yet, anyway.

The total payout to this operation to date has been $113,810, including the 2006 California Recorders Association project. But the billing for the original satellite office survey contract and its extension in 2004 and early 2005 seems not to have been included in the material that we received; that total was $30,200, as proposed.

Of course we question the utility of these projects as even necessary; Daly’s die-hard devotees would probably disagree. However what appears to be incontrovertible is the evidence of a complete and frivolous waste of public funds in the retainer payout to a Sacramento area firm to essentially do nothing – for over five years.

As with the Barbre contract we ask: what was the consultant selection process? Was this a no-bid arrangement? What are GFR’s unique qualifications that justify a retainer agreement, and for that matter, what are the Clerk/Recorder’s needs that justify it?

Maybe one of Daly’s supporters who have been pitching his fiscal conservatism can help us out here.

February 23, 2010February 23, 2010Dead heads

Mauve County Mauve For Good?

by Mr. Peabody8 Comments

It seems that Matthew J. Cunningham, editor of the dismal Mauve County forgot the lesson he once learned when his wife left him in charge of the laundry and he threw his white bikini briefs in with the old lady’s red blouse.

For the past year Cunningham, has been studiously avoiding discussing the subject of why his mentor, boss Repuglican John Lewis was supporting Democrat Tom Daly’s campaign for County Supervisor; and even, some said, running it through a surrogate.

Only recently Cunningham brought on a contributor named Cynthia Ward to post pro-Daly junk and attack the other candidates. That backfired last Friday afternoon when Daly quit, and now the blog is stuck with a sanctimonious NIMBY liberal – one of those types who are Republicans only because dear old dad was.

Cunningham claimed from the get go that Mrs. Ward, who calls herself Colony Rabble, was brought on board to give an “Anaheim perspective;” better still he also claimed that his blog was a big tent “right-of-center” operation, presumably big enough to include a person who is about as conservative as Eleanor Roosevelt. Nobody was buying that load of horse shit.

So Daly is gone, but Ward is still around. Will anyone even notice? Consider the transparently orchestrated attack on Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson by some semi-literate goon named Thomas Anthony Gordon that came out of left field last week in mauve land. What was that all about? Pretty bad for a self-purported conservative blog.

Will the former “Red County” operators now do the right thing by getting behind the race’s only real conservative, Shawn Nelson, a man who actually lives in the 4th District? Don’t bet on it. The Mauve gang have already demonstrated their attachment to self-interest and revenue uber alles.

It looks like the mauve are mauve for good, and no bleach is gonna fix that load of laundry.

February 23, 2010February 23, 2010Dead heads

The CRA Endorses Sidhu. Oh Really?

by admin12 Comments

Harry'sFriend — Let me tell you. That was then.

The other day the OC branch of the California Republican Assembly voted to endorse Harry Sidhu in his carpetbagging quest to be our next County supervisor. Good heavens, now that’s a switcheroo! Just look what the CRA had to say about our buddy Sidhu less than two years ago – when the office-hungry politician ran for another job he wasn’t qualified for:

http://www.redcounty.com/orange-county/2008/05/sd33-mailbox-cra-drops-on-ie-c

P.S. Thanks to the Mauve County for access to their invaluable historical archives.

February 23, 2010February 23, 2010Dead heads

Just Like We Thought

by admin15 Comments

One of our Friends has alerted us that over at the Mauve County, blog where the atmosphere is getting bluer every day, Matthew J. Cunningham has scribbled out one of his tedious Excedrin-not-included posts, this time attacking an excellent post written on our blog by John Seiler, right here.

This was Seiler’s post that described the attempted smear on Shawn Nelson by somebody called Thomas Anthony Gordon – a semi-literate goon from Santa Ana, on the Mauve blog. We previously had some fun with goof-ball Gordo and his Mauve County playmates, here, and here.

What’s really funny is that Gordon is apparently incapable of addressing Seiler’s post himself – too much subtlety of thought going on, no doubt – so into the breach leaps Mr. Wordsmith to counterattack – a pretty good indicator that that Cunningham was the one who helped set up Gordon for all this nonsense in the first place, just like we thought.

What’s really funny, or pathetic, depending on your point of view, is that John Seiler is a strong libertarian conservative – the very traits that should be applauded on a “right-of-center” blog. But no. According to Cunningham, Seiler, whose keyboard Jerb couldn’t carry, is just another Ron Paul nut. Apparently Seiler’s concept of limited government is way out of fashion at Mauve Central where self-interest has always trumped principle.

Well, Jerb has one thing going for him. We know he reads our blog regularly. And even though he has stopped posting comments here under multiple aliases, we’re pretty sure that his ongoing contact with a citizen’s blog that promotes responsible government will do him some good.

February 21, 2010February 21, 2010Dead heads

For Harry Sidhu Carpetbagging Isn’t the Worst of it

by Mr. Peabody14 Comments

He’s smiling because he’s thinking about how damn stupid you are. Too stupid too remember that his very first campaign act was to commit a fraud, a lie, a falsification of public documents: a phony voting registration address at the seedy Calabria Apartments in west Anaheim behind the Linbrook Pool hall.

How do we know it was a fake address? Well, Harry told us it was. He did that when his campaign handlers made him re-register at a more plausible although still dubious address – just four short weeks later! When he did that he acknowledged that his first address was just an outright lie; a lie perpetrated on you and me and everybody else in the 4th Supervisorial District. If you believe in the second address you have to admit the first one was a fake.

Now, why would Sidhu think he could get away with such an obvious thing and why would he do it in the first place? It’s really pretty simple. He has nothing but disrespect for the people he wants to represent; and of course the vast ego that drives the political ambition of a rich office hound. This is his third political campaign in two years, and his fifth in less than eight years.

The case is simple. Sidhu tried to carpetbag his way into the campaign with the fake address. And only when he got caught in that lie did he cook up yet another address – his third in a month. And so his own actions have proved what he and his handlers had hoped wouldn’t become evident: that Sidhu suffers from a very serious case of truth decay and bad case of disrespect for his would-be constituents.

February 18, 2010February 18, 2010Dead heads

Harry Locomotion Story Gets Legs

by The Desert Rat13 Comments

Harry Sidhu has been on the go lately, but the story of his peripatetic wanderings is damn-near keeping up with Harry himself.

HarryTag — Until he moved to the Calabria graffiti was just an abstraction...

Here’s a fun post from a blog called donpalabraz that puts a new spin on Hide-N-Seek Harry’s sortie into the flatlands, and his drive to establish street cred therein. And it’s from a uniquely Latino perspective: el Sidhu loco! We like it.

An FFFF shout out to donpalabraz ‘n them.

February 11, 2010February 11, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Insights into A Mauve Worldview

by admin6 Comments

Van — That's not the cable company, Einstein.

Those rascals in the white van have been hard at work lately. Or a least that’s what they keep telling us; and we keep providing them with vicodin tablets and Everclear.

Our narcotic investment seems to have paid off the other day for the boys have provided us with the the transcript of a conversation between members of the Tom Day for Supervisor campaign and a blogger from what used to be known as “Red County.” The conversation here seems to be about how the latter can help the former. Believe it or not.

John Lewis: Okay. Chris are you with us?

Chris Jones: Yeah I’m here.

JL: Okay, good. Raining up there? Aw, who the hell cares. Okay. Matt Cunningham is, um, here too.

CJ: Yeah. Hi Matt.

Matthew Cunningham: inaudible, high pitched squeak.

JL: Okay. Let’s get to it. We need some blog presence to go after Nelson, right?

CJ: Yeah. I’ve been trying for almost a year, you know, anonymous comments here and there. No traction, you know.

MC: And you got busted for that.

CJ: So did you, Jerbal.

JL: Forget it. Cut it out. We’re supposed to be working together. You both screwed up. Okay. What we need is a real person to start hitting Nelson on Red County.

MC: We’ve gotta be careful, not too obvious. Chip might pull the plug. He’s not too smart, but I think he’s starting to get, you know, um, suspicious.

CJ: Yeah, but it’s gotta be a real person. Then we’ll start commenting under different names.

MC: I can’t do it. What about Gordon?

JL: Gordon? Who the hell is that?

MC: Some dummy that used to blog for Pedroza. From Santa Ana. Doesn’t know his ass from from a pothole on 5th Street. He doesn’t know anything about the 4th District.

CJ: Perfect. Can he write?

MC: No. Well, sort of. You’ll have to write it for him.

JL: He may not want to attack a Republican. Will he want something?

MC: Dunno. He’s not too bright but he’ll probably want something. We can tell him he’s getting even with Pedroza for something. That’ll work. If he wants something you can offer him a, um

CJ: A banana?

(general chuckles)

JL: Okay. Jones writes the thing up then stupid puts his name over it. Great. Good. Okay. Then Jones and you can add to the threads anonymously. You’ve both had practice with that. If, er, whats’ his name?

MC: Gordon?

JL: Yeah, Gordon. If he wants something we’ll tell him Daly’s gonna give him a job if he gets in.

MC: Hey wait a minute. What about, you know, Laura? How many jobs is Daly offering around?

JL: Oh hell don’t worry about it for chrissake. Nobody’s gonna hire…

MC: Gordon?

JL: Right. Gordon. He’s just a plausible…you know…

CJ: Stooge?

(more general chuckles)

JL: Okay. Lets get, um, him on the phone.

MC: Gordon?

JL: Yeah, him. Hmm, looks like the cable company’s working outside the office again. Okay let’s make the call…

At this point transmission was disrupted by interference, rendering the balance of the transmission inaudible.

February 11, 2010Fullerton BooHoo

Fullerton Collaborative Website Vanishes Into E-mist

by Mr. Peabody12 Comments

Gone. Poof.

For the past six weeks I have been visiting the Fullerton Collaborative website periodically to determine when, if ever, the Collabricorns were actually going to put any activities on their calendar. It was a complete blank. For the whole year. And that was interesting because the blurb above the calendar ever so earnestly solicited public participation in the many upcoming Collaborative events.

malevich_black-square — Mick said to paint it black...

I couldn’t figure it out. The Collaborative has a well-remunerated Executive Director, Pam Keller, and surely that type of administrative chore would fall under her job responsibilities. Having no calendar of events didn’t look too good. Was Keller just too darn busy? Too lazy? Does the Collaborative really not care much about public participation? Or was there just really not much going on?

Now we may never know. On my visit to the website – www.fullertoncollaborative.org – yesterday, I was immediately shuffled off the the Collaborative’s “Facebook” page. Now that looks pretty bush league for a non-profit to suddenly take its website offline.

Will it be back? I sure hope so because I want to keep the dark calendar meter running – 35 days and counting.